Mark Ratner:Those involved with narcotics, whether it is marijuana, heroin or cocaine, purchase firearms with their profits and have shown they're willing to use them to protect their business, he said.

"That's where the violence comes in, the competition for the markets," he said.

Yep, sounds like prohibition to me.

"Civilized" corporations have open wars too. They just don't have them here, they have them in the 3rd world.

Oh for crissake.Mr.S and I are both voting to legalize this sh*t and neither one of us are pot smokers. Leave them alone and spend the time, money and effort to close down the dangerous people. A meth house can destroy a neighborhood.

Pretty common here out west. If there's public or private land that can hide something with natural geography or a tree line buildup or something else you can bet that someone is going to try to grow marijuana in it. Of course, you get people like the ones in this thread that talk about how marijuana didn't kill anyone and prohibition is bad, but I'm not sure they understand that when it's legal and commercialized the Mexican Mafia is still going to want theirs, still can provide the best price(like beer snobs, pot snobs make up a small percentage of the pot smoking population), and will still kill people over marijuana.

Putting aside all the "legalize it" talk...I've never understood the "cut it down NOW" approach. Wouldn't it have made more sense to put the field under surveillance, and catch the grower(s)? Seems that would work better than cutting it all down, and hoping for snitches to provide tips.

vudukungfu:FTFA: Those involved with narcotics, whether it is marijuana, heroin or cocaine, purchase firearms with their profits and have shown they're willing to use them to protect their business, he said.

This is why we need to cawkpunch cops on a regular basis.Pot =/= a narcotic.

/cawkpunches all around to cook county's finest.

anything that slows you down by putting you behind bars is called a narcotic. narcotic literally means "slows you down"

bhcompy:Pretty common here out west. If there's public or private land that can hide something with natural geography or a tree line buildup or something else you can bet that someone is going to try to grow marijuana in it. Of course, you get people like the ones in this thread that talk about how marijuana didn't kill anyone and prohibition is bad, but I'm not sure they understand that when it's legal and commercialized the Mexican Mafia is still going to want theirs, still can provide the best price(like beer snobs, pot snobs make up a small percentage of the pot smoking population), and will still kill people over marijuana.

This needs to happen more often. Pot growers need to plant that shiat everywhere. Every public park, every roadside ditch, every vacant lot, every courthouse flowerbed. Overwhelm the authorities with so much wild weed that they couldn't possibly destroy all of it.

iron_city_ap:A football field sized crop of weed is worth $10 million !?

You're obviously not familiar with CopMath™

Here's a quick lesson:

1. Latrell gets caught with one (1) ounce of dirt weed. You take the actual value ($50) and multiply that by 100. So, $50*100 = $5,000. Then, you double that amount because Latrell is a dirty, sub-human negro.. who probably robs and kills people all day. So, $5,000*2 = $10,000. This ensures a long prison sentence for Latrell, and you (the cop) get an award for taking both a filthy criminal and dangerous addictive narcotics off of the street.

2. Shane gets pulled over for his license plate light being out (in broad daylight). He's driving a Hyundai, so he can't be rich, but when you (the cop) smell something, you decide to search Shane's car and find $10,000 in cash. You plant a 2mg Xanax (School Bus/Totem Pole/Whatever the kids call them these days) on his floorboard so you have probable cause to arrest him. Because he is now in custody, you immediately divide the cash by two. So, $10,000/2 = $5,000 (hint: you take the $5k for yourself). When the backup cruiser arrives, you subtract 80% of the remaining $5k to cover your co-workers (other cops). So, $5,000-80% = $1,000. Because the cash was initially found in a Ziploc™ bag, you slap a distribution charge on Shane as well (that will show him). You then get an award for getting a drug peddling criminal and dangerous drug money off of the street. As a bonus, you get to impound his Hyundai, which will be auctioned off to bring in more revenue for your brothers in blue.

Mark Ratner:Those involved with narcotics, whether it is marijuana, heroin or cocaine, purchase firearms with their profits and have shown they're willing to use them to protect their business, he said.

"That's where the violence comes in, the competition for the markets," he said.

Yep, sounds like prohibition to me.

..By "Those" are they referring to the police department? There is big money in seizing people's homes and cars.

bhcompy:Pretty common here out west. If there's public or private land that can hide something with natural geography or a tree line buildup or something else you can bet that someone is going to try to grow marijuana in it. Of course, you get people like the ones in this thread that talk about how marijuana didn't kill anyone and prohibition is bad, but I'm not sure they understand that when it's legal and commercialized the Mexican Mafia is still going to want theirs, still can provide the best price(like beer snobs, pot snobs make up a small percentage of the pot smoking population), and will still kill people over marijuana.

Rickenbacker:Putting aside all the "legalize it" talk...I've never understood the "cut it down NOW" approach. Wouldn't it have made more sense to put the field under surveillance, and catch the grower(s)? Seems that would work better than cutting it all down, and hoping for snitches to provide tips.

Duh, the cops are running a protection racket for their drug dealer homeboy. They'd end up catching their co-workers.

ltdanman44:bhcompy: Pretty common here out west. If there's public or private land that can hide something with natural geography or a tree line buildup or something else you can bet that someone is going to try to grow marijuana in it. Of course, you get people like the ones in this thread that talk about how marijuana didn't kill anyone and prohibition is bad, but I'm not sure they understand that when it's legal and commercialized the Mexican Mafia is still going to want theirs, still can provide the best price(like beer snobs, pot snobs make up a small percentage of the pot smoking population), and will still kill people over marijuana.